Fields of Gold
Chapter 661 - Protect Older Sister Pt 1
Not long after the Yu Family arrived at the capital, the new first-placed candidate in the provincial exams, Lord Little Shitou, also leisurely arrived in the city. After the autumn exams were over, he couldn’t stay in the capital and went back to the Hubei and Hunan provinces along with his classmates to travel and play.
Little Shitou had always been a clever and quick-witted child. Under the imperceptible transformation of the mystic-stone water, not only was his body extremely healthy but his intelligence had also gotten a boost. In the past, when he took the county level and prefectural level exams, his results could only be considered towards the top and he had never gotten first place. Who would have thought that in the period of six years, he would end up taking first place in these exams!
Originally, the Yu Family wanted to prepare a large banquet to celebrate him taking first. However, the fellow didn’t even leave a word before he packed up a few sets of clothing and ran off with his classmates to play in the south! Without the main person there, what was the point of celebrating? That being said, at that time, the news of Zhu Junyang having a rousing success in the north had trickled back to the capital but they still weren’t sure when he was going to be back. Thus, Xiaocao was also absent minded during this period and didn’t organize a party either. In Little Shitou’s words, “When I get the top grade in the imperial court exams, then we will celebrate together!” This fellow was quite confident in himself and didn’t seem to have any pre-exam pressure.
The metropolitan civil service examination was going to be held next year at the start of the third month. He still had more than half a year. If it had been anyone else, they would have long started shutting themselves at home, studying long and hard. He, on the other hand, had the leisurely mood to go run off and find classmates to play around with. It was hard to say whether he had confidence in himself or was just overestimating his abilities!
When he found out that the great expert, Chief Steward Su, was at his family’s residence, recuperating from his wounds, this fellow sidled over, asking to be taught martial arts. If it had been anyone else, Su Ran wouldn’t even give them a proper look. After all, this was Xiaocao’s younger blood-related brother, so Su Ran felt Little Shitou’s body and bones and remarked in disdain, “Your aptitude could only be considered medium. If you had started to slowly train at the age of three to four and practiced for at least a dozen years, then you could almost be considered an expert. Now you’re already sixteen and have long missed the optimal period for learning martial arts, so….you should keep your focus on studying and reading books and stop getting these silly flights of fancy of yours!”
Little Shitou smacked his lips a couple of times and continued on this line of questioning out of his own desire to wonder, “If I had started practicing martial arts when I was young, how big of a chance would I have to fight to a draw with Imperial Prince Xu?”
Su Ran acted as if he had just heard the world's funniest joke and stared at him for a long time before he finally said, “It’s best that young people such as yourself don’t spend too much time daydreaming! Your future older brother-in-law is one of those geniuses at martial arts who can only be found once every a hundred years or so. He’s like the incarnation of the devil himself. Before I got injured, I could only barely manage to avoid suffering a defeat when sparring with him. In other words, there’s probably not more than a handful of people in the Great Ming Empire who could currently surpass him!”
